What Lies Beneath

⚠️ Trigger Warning

This post contains themes related to trauma, emotional distress, dissociation, sexual assault, and therapeutic relationships. Some content may be intense or activating, especially for readers with lived experience of abuse, mental health struggles, or complex trauma.

Please read at your own pace.

Take breaks when you need to.

Step away if your body tells you to.

There is no obligation to consume anyone else’s pain in order to honor your own.

I started therapy in 2021 after being groomed and sexually assaulted in my own home for years. Was it consent? Was it assault? The question that sat in the back of my head for so long. We allowed this man in our home for what was supposed to be a few months. Somehow months turned into almost a decade. And in that decade I somehow lost who I was. My husband is the kind of man who will give the shirt off of his own back to help someone. I don’t think he ever would have thought about what it would have cost him, he always said “God blesses us because we help others” and that was the core of his belief system. He also believed in his cousin and the relationship they shared. It never crossed his mind what his cousin was capable of. And after five years of this man living with us he made me question what I was capable of. First it was compliments when my husband wasn’t around and despite the discomfort I never addressed it with my husband. I didn’t want my feelings to come between their relationship. Eventually the comments escalated. For the sake of the story we will call him Ed. Ed began to insert himself in our marriage. When my husband wasn’t around he’d tell me I deserved better. He’d say my husband didn’t appreciate me. When he witnessed arguing, Ed would tell me how wrong my husband was, and that he was abusive. He got to see and witness moments intended to be private in a marriage, and he’d use that vulnerability to insert himself and try to manipulate me through “love bombing” so to speak. There were no feelings for Ed. Often times his compliments and intrusion left me very uncomfortable, but I justified and rationalized so I wouldn’t be the bad guy who came between them. Ed was also a very close relative of the family group that my life was centered around. Close friends and family loved Ed the same way that they loved me. The situation made me feel that if I spoke up that I’d be ruining so many relationships. When the gaslighting and love bombing didn’t work, Ed resorted to trying to get me drunk to make me more vulnerable and get his way. For years and years I struggled with drinking. More like my whole life, but this isn’t about my addiction. Getting me drunk was the easy part and Ed knew that, and it is my belief that the longer he lived with us the harder it was to him to hold back. He didn’t care who was in the house or what was going on, he made it a point to get me in a state of mind, body, and being where he could take advantage of me. The first time Ed kissed me I was disgusted. I pushed him off of me and insisted he never do it again. I did not tell my husband. This will forever be my biggest regret. I don’t know if it was fear, guilt, or what… but I kept it to myself. For weeks I carried anxiety with me. I had a pit in my stomach and I couldn’t stand the sight of Ed. By this point I did finally start talking to my husband about Ed needing to move out. My husband enjoyed Ed. He didn’t know there was a problem so he didn’t see any reason to kick him out. From my husband’s perspective, his cousin was helping with bills, projects, and kids; but inside I was screaming. Ed eventually apologized for the kiss. He said he was drunk and he did not regret it but it wouldn’t happen again. I didn’t listen to the red flag statement that he didn’t regret it but I listened to the rest and I let it go. Or at least I told myself I let it go. Months passed and Ed was on his best behavior and I started to feel relief in his staying with us. I even began to convince myself that I could forgive him and be his friend again. For context, my husband travels for work. Some seasons he travels more than others. During a period of his travel I was doing my nails. Ed came in the room with his usual compliments. I ignored him and shrugged him off. He was drunk. He was always drunk. When I ignored him he began to please himself in front of me. My whole body froze. My mind froze. I FROZE. I didn’t know how to process what was happening in front of my face. When he finished he stumbled off and went to bed. I cleaned up my polishes and powder and scrubbed the entire room like I was getting rid of the plague. After that event, I still didn’t open up to my husband. Call it fear. Call it shame. Call it stupidity. Call it what you will. I stayed quiet and shut down. After that it was no holds bar for Ed. My body became his play land. And with each event I’d shut down more. It became secret after secret until I convinced myself that I was allowing it and it was consensual and I was betraying my marriage. That became my thought process. I believe this is a matter of perception and everyone will develop their own opinion, but it’s my story to tell and it’s my perception that matters. After the final attack, I reached a mental breaking point. I couldn’t do it anymore. My drinking was getting worse to dissociate, my body carried anxiety until it couldn’t anymore. I ended up in the hospital with functional neurological disorder. I lost my ability to speak. My body trembled unconditionally. My vision blurred. It was the worst kind of anxiety that I never knew existed. I still DID NOT tell my husband. But I did go to therapy. I knew I had to do something. Gio, my therapist, became this life line that I didn’t know I was seeking. I believe I hit a state of psychosis from trauma trapped in my mind and body. Her voice offered calm. Her words offered reassurance….. but most importantly, in that space with her I could create a narrative that felt safe when I felt anything but. I never went into therapy with the intent to lie. I never knew how big the lies would grow. I also never even knew that this trauma response was a survival technique. The first lies I told her were for safety and precaution. Ed still lived with us. I was still in danger. And my husband didn’t know anything. Had I given Gio the whole of the story she would have been mandated to report it. I was no where near ready for a battle like that… despite how necessary it would have been. So I gave her altered truths that addressed what I had been through so we could work through the NFD, trauma, and anxiety. To be clear…. When this kind of trauma is experienced, one isn’t thinking clearly. Looking back, there’s no way I would have truly worked through things with my perpetrator still in the home. But I fucking tried. I also never knew how much was collapsing around me until it became too much. My whole life was falling apart, and for no other reason than the fact that I wasn’t responding in any effective manner to anything. I was not functioning. I was drinking. I was dissociating. I was slowly losing my mind. But in therapy I didn’t want and couldn’t even begin to tell Gio the truth and this led to a fear of her seeing right through me, so each week I put on this performance like I was getting better. I kept taking the hits from life and showing up to sessions like with a mask on. I think a part of me also really grew connected to Gio. I truly loved her, in obviously the way you love anyone you share the most intimate parts of yourself with. I never wanted Gio to feel like she wasn’t doing her job, or like she was failing me. She took time to check in on me. She genuinely cared about me. She let me email her when I was mentally breaking, and she always responded with so much empathy and compassion. I think I grew so attached to the safety net and it made the danger zone more bearable; but it also created this weird paradox that stripped boundaries and eventually moved us from treatment plan to transference. I gained a co-dependency on that therapeutic relationship. I also felt like if she ever knew the truth she’d hate me and that was a safety net I couldn’t afford to lose. The lies grew. And they grew out of control. The insanity also grew, and I was losing grip.

Stay tuned if you want to hear more about how I lied to my therapist for four years. Was I out of my mind? It’s worth talking about.

Ella

Before I continue this story, I want to say something that matters.

No one gets to dictate another person’s truth.

Not therapists.

Not partners.

Not families.

Not systems.

Not readers.

Your story belongs to you.

What you remember.

What you feel.

What your body knows.

What you are ready to say—or not say.

All of it is yours.

You are allowed to hold your truth quietly.

You are allowed to tell it loudly.

You are allowed to change how you tell it as you grow.

You are allowed to protect parts of it forever.

There is no timeline for healing.

No performance requirement for pain.

No correct way to survive what you survived.

And if this space reminds you of something inside yourself, something you’ve buried, minimized, or never had language for; I hope you know this:

You do not owe your story to anyone.

But you deserve a place where it can exist.

Silence can be a shield.

But so can voice.

And sometimes, speaking isn’t about being believed by the world.

Sometimes it’s about finally believing yourself.

Resources

If this post stirred something in you and you need support, you are not alone—and you don’t have to carry it by yourself.

Immediate Support (U.S.)

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Call or text 988 (24/7, confidential, free) Crisis Text Line Text HOME to 741741 RAINN Sexual Assault Hotline 800-656-HOPE (4673) or chat at rainn.org

Mental Health & Trauma Support

Psychology Today Therapist Finder https://www.psychologytoday.com FindTreatment.gov (U.S.) https://findtreatment.gov National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) https://www.nami.org

If You’re Outside the U.S.

Find a helpline by country: https://findahelpline.com